Carrots ‘n’ Cake is written by a food and fitness blogger who also happens to be a mom. The blog provides meal plans, advice for those looking to get fit while dealing with chronic illnesses, and relatable posts about maintaining health while balancing motherhood. You can also find some great recipes, like these blender chocolate chip cookies. Visit the blog.

What happens if you fast for a day? What happens if you don't eat for a day? While most people will feel hungry and possibly tired, there is also a range of other effects. In this article, learn about how the body starts to burn fat for energy and whether fasting for 24 hours can be a good weight loss tool. We also investigate the possible risks. Read now
Don’t let extra hours lounging in bed stand between you and a flatter belly. While getting enough sleep can help boost your metabolic rate, sleeping in may undo any benefit you’d enjoy from catching a few extra winks. One study reveals that late sleepers who snoozed past 10:45 in the morning ate nearly 250 more calories over the course of the day, despite eating half as many fruits and vegetables as their early bird counterparts. Even worse, they chowed down on more salty, sugary, and trans fat-laden fast food than those who woke up earlier. If you happen to head out of the house early, you’re in for an additional metabolic boost; researchers at Northwestern University have found that people exposed to just a short period of early morning sunlight had lower BMIs than their late-waking counterparts.

I have one concern about eating eggs everyday and the cholesterol. I have high blood pressure, what would you recommend?? I come from a family of obese, and myself i am very overweight. Not as active as i should be. I also have a family of bad hearts on both sides. My mother had a heart attack at age 44, my dad passed away from heart attack at age 55, my younger sister had a heart attack at age 34. So far i only have high blood pressure, we also have diabetes in our family. Please help me loose this weight, any suggestions???

“I learned how to cook from scratch and experiment with flavors. The biggest change my husband Mark and I made was planning our meals for the week on Sundays. We also rely on food optimizing—using vegetables to bulk up our meals but still keep them low-calorie. It helped me lose 52 pounds and 8 dress sizes, while Mark lost 110 pounds.” —Amanda Gibbon, 46
The main advantage of the low-carb diet is that it causes you to want to eat less. Even without counting calories most overweight people eat far fewer calories on low carb. Sugar and starch may increase your hunger, while avoiding them may decrease your appetite to an adequate level. If your body wants to have an appropriate number of calories you don’t need to bother counting them. Thus: Calories count, but you don’t need to count them.
3. Be realistic about which habits need to go. "When I was heavy, I'd eat French fries every single day, plus carbs at almost every meal—like a sandwich for lunch or bread with pasta for dinner. A diet so heavy in fried food and carbs just isn't conducive to weight loss. To lose the weight, I went from three large meals a day to six small meals, mostly made of fresh vegetable salads with lean meats and nuts. And no more bread!"
As my body changed, people started to notice. The encouragement and positive talk from friends and family was helpful, except for when people would say things like, “wow you look so great now!” Now. It didn’t quite sit right to hear that some people thought I looked a lot better now, but that I didn’t look as great before. It was important to remind myself that I looked great no matter what. More important than what other people think about my looks, I needed to accept and love myself and my body, even if my body never changed. I didn’t set out on the weight loss journey to have other people change their minds about how I looked; I started the journey to create a healthy body, healthy mind, and overall wellness.

No matter what a magazine article says, spot improving is a myth! When your body burns fat, it takes it from all over your body, even if all you do are crunches. No amount of crunches will get rid of that gut if they are not backed up by proper aerobic exercise and diet! Washboard abs do not come from millions of sit-ups; they come from having low levels of body fat. So if that is your goal, make sure you do plenty of aerobic exercise in addition to your ab routine.

Use the meal as a reward for a week’s worth of hard work, or the completion of a project you’ve been dreading. “It’s OK for people to blow one meal a week without feeling guilty,” says James W. Anderson, M.D., director of the Metabolic Research Group at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. “If you follow a healthy diet 95% of the time, you can relax and enjoy yourself the other 5% of the time without gaining weight.”
I have one concern about eating eggs everyday and the cholesterol. I have high blood pressure, what would you recommend?? I come from a family of obese, and myself i am very overweight. Not as active as i should be. I also have a family of bad hearts on both sides. My mother had a heart attack at age 44, my dad passed away from heart attack at age 55, my younger sister had a heart attack at age 34. So far i only have high blood pressure, we also have diabetes in our family. Please help me loose this weight, any suggestions???
Katie Foster is a mother and healthy lifestyle blogger for Running For Cookies. After struggling with being overweight her entire life, constant yo-yo dieting, and her weight reaching a high of 253 pounds, she decided to make a change for good when her weight prevented her from teaching her son how to ride a bike. Katie documents her 125-pound weight loss journey and her battle with mental health, along with healthy recipes, running advice, and motivation that helped her reach her goals and accept herself on her blog.

Make lunch at home and bring it to work. That way, you know of every single ingredient that's going into your meal. Not to mention it'll save you the cost of buying a lunch. Cleveland Clinic recommends making sure one half of your plate is filled with leafy greens, one quarter is lean meat, and the other quarter is whole grains like brown rice or barley.

Most random item you'll find in my purse: a resistance band loop. 🤓#fitnessnerd I love that they're so easy to tote around, especially when you're training a client and want to take their workout to the next level. I also add them for a little *spice* in my barre classes. 🔥 🌶 Some of my fave loop exercises: Hip raises (in the pic above. Try it with one leg to make it more exciting) Low squat walks Clamshells Side leg raises Donkey kicks Hip extensions and banded burpees (

If you are looking for a satisfying and delicious meat-free Bolognese sauce, you must add this Hearty Vegetable Bolognese sauce to your dinner menu this week! 🍝 This recipe gets its meaty texture from walnuts (inspired by @livingkitchen — a local #CLT-area fav!) and is a healthy and filling vegetarian dish we LOVE in our house!⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ INGREDIENTS ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ 2 cups peeled, chopped carrots ⠀⠀ ½ cup chopped bell peppers⠀⠀ 8 ounces fresh mushrooms⠀⠀ 2 small yellow onions⠀⠀ ¼ cup kalamata olives⠀⠀ ¼ cup Cabernet Sauvignon ⠀⠀ 3 garlic cloves, peeled⠀⠀ 1 cup walnuts ⠀⠀ 1½ teaspoons Italian seasoning ⠀⠀ 1 teaspoon sea salt ⠀⠀ 1 25-ounce jar marinara sauce⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ DIRECTIONS ⠀⠀ ⠀⠀ In a food processor, shred the carrots, bell peppers, olives, mushrooms, onions and garlic until they are shredded into very fine pieces.⠀⠀ Drizzle a large, deep nonstick skillet with olive oil and heat to a medium-high heat. Add the shredded vegetables and allow them to cook down, as the water sweats out and they reduce in volume for about 5 minutes. Add the wine, reduce the heat and allow to simmer longer (approximately 7-10 minutes), until almost all of the liquid is gone.⠀⠀ While the vegetables are cooking, place the walnuts, Italian seasonings and sea salt into the food processor and grind into a course meal, taking care not to over grind, as a paste will form.⠀⠀ Add the walnuts to the skillet and stir.⠀⠀ Add the marinara sauce and stir to combine. Simmer on medium-low heat for another 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.⠀⠀ Serve on top of whole wheat spaghetti, zucchini noodles, spaghetti squash or your favorite pasta and enjoy!⠀⠀

‘Do it for a couple of minutes in bed and you’ll actually be able to wind down and fall asleep more easily. But it’s a skill, so it requires a commitment to practice it, as with anything. Think of it a bit like dating – the first time you do it it’s terrible, it’s uncomfortable, nobody knows what they’re doing, but the more dates you go on the better it gets.

Thank you for sharing your journey. I’m a mother of 5 and I homeschool. I’m 39 and 40 pounds overweight. I’ve never been over weight and I’m struggling. I emotionally eat all day, everyday and my weight just keeps creeping up. I’ve hoped the Lord would tell me to fast so maybe I’d lose weight but He knows that’s not the right heart and so do I. I’ve been praying for something to stand out, something that will help me desire to make a change. I’ve been feeling lost and hopeless. After reading your blog here, I’m crying and praying because I feel like this might be my answer to prayer. I stumbled upon your story accidentally and I’m finding myself feeling the Lord all over it. Thank you! Through praying now, tears and not believing in myself because I ALWAYS fail, I’m hoping that maybe, just maybe this might be the time. Thank you!
Not only did I struggle to lose weight for more than a decade then discover how to happily and heatlhfully achieve permanent weight sustainability ffor myself, but I ahve also mastered the science of it and had excellent resutls with clients on six continents. As a result of my insights and success, I have become somewhat of an internationally-celebrated expert on women’s hormones and health.
Congrats on your transformation! You should feel very proud of yourself to have come so far and to have gotten to the point where you can listen to your stomach. Surprisingly, that simple communication with our body is something that so many of us have trained ourselves to not pay any attention to. After suffering with an eating disorder for about 15 years, I got to the point where I didn’t even know what it felt like to be hungry anymore! I had to really work to “hear” that signal. And you’re right, counting calories can be an obsession that can take over your life and your thoughts, so I think it’s awesome that you have cut back from that and are just listening to your wants and needs and not freaking out over a piece of cake.
Drink water. Contrary to another popular misconception there is no specific amount of water you should ingest. Everyone has different needs based on genetics, activity level, the environment they live in etc. The key is to drink water until your pee looks like lemonade. If it looks like apple juice keep drinking. The reason this helps flatten your tummy is two fold: hydration can boost fat metabolism by up to 3% and drinking water flushes out excess bloat and water weight you might be holding on to.
Could I ask a question (or two?!)? I’m just starting to design a blog that’s around weight loss and fitness (it is specific and not as vague as I’ve made it sound!). When I see even genuine blogs you always see the person when they’ve reached physical perfection (which is great) but what do you do if you’re blogging at the beginning of that journey? I don’t know what image to put on my home page at this point – I kinda am more happy the starting point being on a My Journey page but I’m a bit lost as to what to put on the home page or having running through the blog as a consistent image (until I reach my goals)? What do you think? Also, is there a best format/way to construct the chronological record of your journey – what’s the best blog-site architecture for this type of routinely updated journey??
1000 crunches a night may get you strong abdominal muscles, but with a full layer of fat on top, you will not get the results you really want. Instead of all those crunches, do exercises that engage multiple muscle groups and work your cardiovascular system. Try planking, where you hold yourself in a push-up position, resting your forearms on the ground. Try 3 or 4 sets of holding for 30 seconds each. Getting up and moving throughout the day by going for walks will also help.
This is a very simple method that you can use even when you're in the midst of doing something else. Whenever you notice you’re feeling tense and uptight check and see how you’re breathing. Most people under stress either alternate holding their breath with short breaths, or take rapid shallow breaths. After you become aware of your own breathing, consciously relax your belly and slow down the breathing. This works best if you focus on slowing down the exhalation rather than your inhalation. With each exhalation you can say to yourself "slow down". That is all there is to it- Simple but surprisingly effective!!!
With fitness, just get active. Find an activity you enjoy, and stick with it. Progress will come with time. If you’re a student, try walking to class or taking laps around buildings for study breaks. If you work full time, take a lap every hour or two, use your lunch break to work out, and just find something that works. One of my favorite things was taking walks when I talked on the phone to people – that’s at least a 30-60 min time to get moving.
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CMWL clinical study: Based on a stratified sample of 349 patients over a six-year period. Patients must have remained on the program for a minimum of 28 days and be monitored with at least two physician visits within first 31 days to be included in the study. A variety of nutritional meal replacements were used. 99% of the patients that followed the CMWL program, including a low calorie diet and individual counseling with CMWL physicians, from one month up to a year, weighed less at their last weigh-in than their starting weight.
When researchers in Brazil studied 13,000 people over a three-year period, they found that men with the highest levels of inflammatory agents in their body were also the most likely to gain weight. And periodontal disease, which is caused by poor oral health care, is one of the most common sources of inflammation. Brushing twice a day, flossing, and making regular trips to the dentist are the best ways to prevent the disease. Hate flossing? Studies show that a dose of Listerine may be just as effective at reducing levels of inflammatory bacteria within the mouth.
About: Healthier key lime pie. Lower-calorie chocolate caramel snickers bars. Lower carb chocolate-filled cookies. If you have a sweet tooth but are trying to lose weight, Kaylie’s blog is for you. Kaylie is a registered dietitian who has a sweet tooth of her own. So, naturally, she figured out recipe swaps for making desserts with lower calories while maintaining all the sweet deliciousness. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.
If you’re having trouble getting to bed, these 20 sleep strategies can help. To help stick to these strategies, consider these sleep tips your weight loss tips as well. Shutting off electronics an hour before bedtime, limiting caffeine intake in the afternoons, avoiding simple carbs in the evenings and journaling can all help you unwind so you get enough rest. You can also consider natural sleep aids to boost your ability to fall asleep and sleep soundly.
Carb crazy? Consider this: Refined carbohydrates, such as bread, potatoes and rice, create a surge in insulin that in turn drives down your resting metabolic rate, explains Aronne. "It's important to keep carbohydrates in your diet, but really focus on fruits, vegetables and whole grains, which have less of an effect on insulin levels," he explains. And when buying whole-grain breads and cereals, make sure the first ingredient listed is whole wheat, whole oat or cracked wheat.
Could I ask a question (or two?!)? I’m just starting to design a blog that’s around weight loss and fitness (it is specific and not as vague as I’ve made it sound!). When I see even genuine blogs you always see the person when they’ve reached physical perfection (which is great) but what do you do if you’re blogging at the beginning of that journey? I don’t know what image to put on my home page at this point – I kinda am more happy the starting point being on a My Journey page but I’m a bit lost as to what to put on the home page or having running through the blog as a consistent image (until I reach my goals)? What do you think? Also, is there a best format/way to construct the chronological record of your journey – what’s the best blog-site architecture for this type of routinely updated journey??
Of course, you want to get to the bottom of why you’re not feeling so hot. One study found that practicing relaxation techniques helped obese women who were emotional eaters lose weight over the course of three months, along with helping them reduce depression and anxiety. (7) Engaging in other activities that can help you relax are a better option than emotional eating.
Whereas many beverages can increase your waistline (see above), there is one that is guaranteed to trim your tummy: water. Drinking plain ol’ H2O works because staying fully hydrated tells your body it’s okay to release any extra water it’s retaining, decreasing the accompanying bloat. Plus, drinking water has been proven to reduce cravings for sweets, lower your appetite, and help you feel satiated faster. Here 9 more ways to bust belly fat in a single day!

Jillian Michaels is a full-fledged fitness regimen, complete with exercise protocol and meal guides. If you’re motivated to lose weight and get in shape, this may be the program for you. The workouts are broken up into circuits of a few simple exercises, with multiple circuits per day. You’ll also benefit from the encouragement of Jillian Michaels herself—who repeatedly promises to kick your butt and whip you into shape on her website—through her video tutorials and training guides. It’s like having a personal trainer motivate you during your workout, but with a much lower price tag.

Thanks so much for sharing your story! I saw your Instagram post opening up this post for questions. My question is about your arms. How was the skin under your arm after losing the weight? Did you do any exercises to target that area? Your arms look great & it is giving me hope that if I can get some more weight off mine will continue to improve. Would love to know any secrets there!
Certain carbohydrates have a tendency to be poorly absorbed in your intestines and then rapidly fermented, leading to gas and bloating. Common culprits include refined carbohydrates and simple sugars—like those found in processed foods with added sugars. Excess sodium can also cause bloating due to increased water retention. Opt for freshly prepared foods and reduce processed, packaged foods to cut back on belly bloaters. In the morning, swap your sugar-laden bowl of cereal for this Green Smoothie, made with fresh fruits and vegetables to get your day started the right way.
Hi mi 16 years old and I’m scared to get on the scale to weigh myself because the last time I was 222lbs and that’s horrible I know that. I cry a lot because I just can’t seem to lose weight and I get called names based on my weight a lot. I’m really a girly girl and I hate going shopping now because of my weight. I really want to lose my stomach fat, lose thighs, arms,back, and everything else or at least tighten it up because I’m going to be a senior next year. And I doubt I’ll get asked to the prom If I look the way I look. So that’s my goal for the summer. I’ve been looking online for a while to find ways to lose weight I even considered pills and when I get like that (desperate) I even think about just ending all my problems permanently if you know what I mean.
Top Quote: “If I surrender, give up the fight to do it all alone, then I’ll probably remain on the outskirts of that tribe of origin permanently. Is that a tough thing to write? You bet. But here’s the gorgeous thing about life – you can make your own tribe. You can form your own crew, you can find other lovable, crazy-about-life people that will be there to support you and lift you up.”
About: Lindsey’s real. That’s it. Her blog, her writing style, her topics...they’re from a real person who shares her real experiences in a way that’s anything but dull. Lindsey’s posts are always chock full of photos to tell the story better, and range from fitness, to eating, to life lessons and more. Lindsey started her blog as a way to maintain a healthy, active lifestyle while remaining full and happy, but it has over the years morphed into a funny mashup of recipes, reviews, travel, pets and healthy living. (Be sure to check out her “best of” section — which includes titles of posts like “The Time I Almost Got Arrested.” You can figure it out from there).
Replace the negative voice in your head that's telling you to quit with a motivational saying that will inspire you to keep going even when it gets tough. "I powered through workouts telling myself, 'I can do hard things!'" says Megen Karlinsey, who kept off 150 pounds. Her mantra helped her accomplish a triathlon, which she signed up for to blast a weight loss plateau.
If you want to lose weight you should start by avoiding sugar and starch (like bread, pasta and potatoes). This is an old idea: For 150 years or more there have been a huge number of weight-loss diets based on eating fewer carbs. What’s new is that dozens of modern scientific studies have proven that, yes, low carb is the most effective way to lose weight.
Eat polyunsaturated fats. While saturated fat leads to the body's retention of visceral fat, causing abdominal girth and excessive weight gain, studies have shown that a diet high in polyunsaturated fat helps promote the production of muscle mass instead of body fat.[7] Polyunsaturated fats can also help reduce cholesterol levels in the body, lowering the risk of stroke and heart disease.[8] Sources of polyunsaturated fats include:[9]

About: Georgina is a natural in the kitchen. She loves experimenting with new recipes, often figuring out ways to make them healthier, as well as crafting and just generally living a happy life. When she started her blog four years ago, it was for a long time only read by her mother. Now, it’s a huge part of Georgina’s life and features all sorts of yummy recipes, tips for finding happiness and wellness, beauty and crafts. Georgina’s also a very visual person, so you’ll find no shortage of photos to tell the story in an even more vibrant way.

If you want to shrink your gut, get enough protein in your diet. In this case, about 25 percent of calories. Why? For starters, protein makes you feel full and helps you build muscle (which increases metabolism, thereby making it easier to lose weight). Just as important, high-protein diets have been shown to be the best way of attacking belly fat. In one study, published in the International Journal of Obesity, Danish researchers put 65 people on either a 12 percent protein diet or a 25 percent protein diet. The low-protein dieters lost an average of 11 pounds, which isn't bad. But the high-protein subjects lost an average of 20 pounds--including twice as much abdominal fat as the low-protein group.
Losing weight is no small feat—it often requires a complete lifestyle overhaul, and with so much information out there, it can be tough to know what strategy might work for you. And to top it all off, all the weight loss myths that just will not die threaten to throw you off track. That's why it's helpful to know what has worked for real people—in their own words. Here, we've gathered advice from 28 women who have lost between 26 and 174 pounds—and kept that weight off for good.
Hi Amanda! I promise you, you are NOT hopeless. You can do this! One small change at a time. Every decision matters and those small things add up so quickly. Feel free to send me an email and we can talk more and I may be able to give you more specific guidance, but for now, just know that you can do this. If God can take a junk food-loving, couch potato like me and turn me into a veggie-loving runner, I promise He can transform your life (and your heart), too!
About Blog Healthful&Inspired’s mission is to provide inspiration for individuals who have the important goal of losing weight by means of helpful and inspirational articles, meaningful infographics and photographics that trigger an aspiration for success, real life weight loss success stories, weight loss products that work to help boost the process, and more to people who are looking for ways to become lighter and slimmer than they were yesterday.
Thanks so much for sharing your story! I saw your Instagram post opening up this post for questions. My question is about your arms. How was the skin under your arm after losing the weight? Did you do any exercises to target that area? Your arms look great & it is giving me hope that if I can get some more weight off mine will continue to improve. Would love to know any secrets there!
It can be harder to lose weight after menopause. In fact, many women gain an average of 5 pounds after menopause.5 Lower estrogen levels may play a role in weight gain after menopause. But weight gain may be caused by your metabolism slowing down as you age, less-healthful eating habits, and being less active. You also lose muscle mass as you age, so you use fewer calories.
About: If we had to sum up Helen’s blog in two words, they would be “creative” and “hilarious.” Because that’s exactly what the blog is...a blend of Helen’s witty writing combined with her pursuit of all things new in the dieting, fitness and weight loss realm — be they inspirational or out in left-field … and everything in between. Helen, a once “healthy living” blogger who gave it up years ago and then recently returned to the world with a new theme — is obsessed with what’s “new,” and she’s the queen of trying it out and letting her readers know if it worked well, or if it didn’t work at all. And that whole “new” theme doesn’t just mean trends...she also loves helping people who are new to weight loss and healthy living succeed.
Keep a food diary. Write down every meal, snack, and drink you consume as well as the approximate quantities for an entire week. Writing down what you consume actually helps us to remain mindful of what we put into our bodies and acts as a motivator to stay healthy. If you can, write down the number of calories that go along with each meal or snack you eat.
Use the meal as a reward for a week’s worth of hard work, or the completion of a project you’ve been dreading. “It’s OK for people to blow one meal a week without feeling guilty,” says James W. Anderson, M.D., director of the Metabolic Research Group at the University of Kentucky in Lexington. “If you follow a healthy diet 95% of the time, you can relax and enjoy yourself the other 5% of the time without gaining weight.”
Leah Campbell is a writer and editor living in Anchorage, Alaska. She’s a single mother by choice after a serendipitous series of events led to the adoption of her daughter. Leah is also the author of the book “Single Infertile Female” and has written extensively on the topics of infertility, adoption, and parenting. You can connect with Leah via Facebook, her website, and Twitter.